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Aurora Theater Shooter Offers To Plead Guilty To Avoid Death Penalty
- Thread starter DrForester
- Start date
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Meh.
Hope they do a plea deal, if it's life in prison without chance of parole. The trial would be expensive and death row is expensive, too, with all those appeals. As far as I'm concerned, that's a win for the prosecution and the people.
Angelus Errare
Banned
How to tell you're not insane
1. You plead insanity a nearly a year later.
1. You plead insanity a nearly a year later.
Choke on the Magic
Banned
Definitely a matter of opinion.
Eh, if the costs were equal, I'd be willing to allow for the debate in cases where there is certainty of guilt. But from a practical standpoint, it's so stupid to waste significantly more manpower and money on following through on capital punishment just for a little vengeance.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Depends on the level of prison you go to. I've toured several, and my family has two generations of workers who spent 20+ years each working for the system, and well, a lot of what you see on TV is pretty much bull, outside some of the Max security joints.
And well, life in a max or super max? I'd prefer death compared to a concrete cell and a 9x9 foot cage to get 'exercise' in an hour a day, for decades on end.
Choke on the Magic
Banned
Certainly. However, instead of taking a plea deal and facing 60 years of solitary, James Holmes gets to be the center of attention. He also possibly get put in a mental health facility or costs taxpayers large sums of money until his appeals run out in 20 years.
Choke on the Magic
Banned
Putting it that way does make it shame they sought the death penalty.
Seeking the death penalty is a huge money drain though
Zoramon089
Banned
You don't think life in prison is orders of magnitude more expensive? Although I have heard the means used for the death penalty are also fairly expensive
Long appeals process makes it more expensive. It also seems to have no utility as a deterrent. And then you have the problem of if you fuck up and sentence the wrong guy, you cant fix your mistake
Zoramon089
Banned
Well, I meant in this specific case where we know he's guilty
IdreamofHIME
Member
This. I feeling killing someone is the worst form of revenge possible. My beliefs around death are that it's just lights out. Nothing else.
So I think killing someone doesn't really offer that palpable vengeance that some might want.
Not that I'm some kind of secret vigilante or anything.
Deified Data
Banned
We knew Tim McVeigh did the AP Murrah bombing and it still took forever for him to be put to death
Incitemaybe
Member
The death penalty is the easy way out from my perspective. Life in prison sounds much worse to me so I hope that's what he gets.
alfredofroylan
Member
Thread bump, he's going to plea insanity
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/06/04/holmes-enters-insanity-plea/2388239/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/06/04/holmes-enters-insanity-plea/2388239/
Choke on the Magic
Banned
I kind of wish they wouldn't have now. He could've just pled guilty and spent his life in a cell. Hopefully the prosecution wins.
Phoenix
Member
Yeah, I find it weird that the prosecution would be inclined to head in that direction and take the death penalty off the table.
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
They'll win. It's very difficult to get acquitted on an insanity plea due to the legal definition of insanity.
Ninja Scooter
Member
You can't make exceptions for people we "know" are guilty. The death penalty serves no purpose but to satiate some strange, primal desire for revenge. That's not what the justice system should be used for.
What incentive does the prosecution have?
Maybe not much from an ego perspective but uh, save the state a shit ton of money? Close the fucking circus that this trial will be? Lock up Holmes in solitary for the rest of his awful life and throw away the key?
Basically, remove his presence in society for good. Putting him to trial in February 2014 only prolongs his public existence.
Maybe not much from an ego perspective but uh, save the state a shit ton of money? Close the fucking circus that this trial will be? Lock up Holmes in solitary for the rest of his awful life and throw away the key?
Basically, remove his presence in society for good. Putting him to trial in February 2014 only prolongs his public existence.
And if they pursue the death penalty and succeed, then he gets the maximum amount of appeals the system allows automatically, further dragging out the process and using up more of the judiciary's resources.
That's part of why the death penalty is so expensive; We put measures in place to enforce complete exhaustion of all courses of appeal, all complaints, all grievances with the verdict, because once the sentence is carried out, there's NO corrective action possible, because there's no one left to compensate.
In any other sentence, there has to be something there for you to appeal aside from "I don't like the outcome." Some reason why the conviction was wrong, or why the trial/investigation was not fair.
I think.
As far as the "isolation from the public" aspect is concerned, there is NO DIFFERENCE between a life sentence and the death penalty. There's nothing to gain from pursuing the death penalty. So why waste our time/resources on it? :/
I'm against the death penalty because I believe it to be a cruel and unjust punishment. Yet in the U.S you have prisoners who have been tortured for years upon years through solitary confinement, their minds utterly destroyed and begging for death. I don't know, maybe death would be a better solution in those cases.
What weighs on me is that the prosecution contacted the victims' families to make the decision. I empathize with the people and can't imagine their pain but I'd like to think at least one of the families was against it.
Does that mean it was a vote or what? If it was unanimous then okay but I guess we won't know.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
They should let him plea now that Colorado's Govenor has become spineless about the death penalty.
And I don't mean because he's against it, but because he recently put someone who was going to be executed for a mass murder 20 years ago on "Indefinite delay" so the next Govenor can deal with it.
And I don't mean because he's against it, but because he recently put someone who was going to be executed for a mass murder 20 years ago on "Indefinite delay" so the next Govenor can deal with it.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
Since the controversy around the legal justice system has lit a fire under our asses I suggest its time I come forth and say it: I'm 100% for the death penalty.
To this day I cannot watch the Dark Knight Rises without feeling a deep feeling of sadness for those hurt in that theater. I own a physical copy of the movie, but that night has made it so that I cannot watch it. James Holmes makes me sick.
To this day I cannot watch the Dark Knight Rises without feeling a deep feeling of sadness for those hurt in that theater. I own a physical copy of the movie, but that night has made it so that I cannot watch it. James Holmes makes me sick.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Well, hopefully Colorado will get a new Governor who isn't a giant pussy.
I live only a few miles from the theater (was actually at a different theater just as far from the guy's home as the theater he chose), and I don't really think about it when I watch the movie. Guy was a psycho, and I'm not going to let the memory of him hurt my enjoyment of something.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Let's kill a person because I can't watch a comic book movie the same way anymore.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I wouldn't want to pay the taxes for his room and board either.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Protip: You pay more in taxes to have him executed. Killing him solves nothing. It won't bring those people back. It won't make The Dark Knight Rises easier for you to watch. All it does is satiates this bloodthirsty desire our society thinks it has, and only realizes after isn't changed when we execute a person, no matter how evil they are.
They will probably put him in the protected prison wing.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
We have soldiers carrying weapons to defend themselves, they go out on high stake missions to capture and kill possible terrorist threats, and we train them to kill. We either kill them in combat or we do it through our legal system. Blood is still shed regardless.
Ninja Scooter
Member
The guy pulling the switch for the electric chair isn't defending himself, and the criminal is already captured.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
I read the title as "Aurora Teacher Shoots...".
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
I don't even know where to start. All this because you can't face up to the fact that you bought a bad film. James Holmes is a horrible human being and the shooting was awful, but we neither need to execute him nor compile his sins by blaming him for TDKR being unwatchable.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Welcome back Sculli,
Ninja Scooter
Member
lol I ain't even mad.
Not against death penalty for serial killers, mass murderers etc. No sympathy. Why waste hundreds of thousands of dollars each year housing and feeding this guy for 60+ years?
He'll never be rehabilitated. I know all about the dangers of the death penalty, I've worked and helped numerous offenders serving life sentences etc.
If there is no death penalty, put him in a supermax, 23 hour lock down facility. Will spend the rest of his life regretting killing so many innocent people.
He'll never be rehabilitated. I know all about the dangers of the death penalty, I've worked and helped numerous offenders serving life sentences etc.
If there is no death penalty, put him in a supermax, 23 hour lock down facility. Will spend the rest of his life regretting killing so many innocent people.
User 100115
Banned
I fully support a guilty plea. Since then there wouldn't be a huge media circus of a trail, thus denying him anymore 'fame'
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
is this really true. I have a hard time believing it.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
He's hired by the government or works for the state. Back before the American Revolution Kings allowed criminals to be killed, many of those times in public. It is after a long stretch of wars and freedoms that we have come to the conclusion that it is wrong.
When we defend ourselves we fight for ourselves. Having an authority like a government to take such matters into their own hands to me is justified. Just like it is during war.
It's as if this logic is same conservative force that drives people away, but it isn't. It's simply saying that the law can punish someone to death if they are entitled to it.
I think Holmes does not want to just die.
I literally have a problem because I grew up going to theaters a lot. I let it go, but I don't like watching the film.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Yes, we have come to the conclusion that something done hundreds of years ago by uncivilized and barbaric "kings" is wrong. Heaven forbid.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
It's kind of silly how you only get the death penalty if you still claim to be innocent.
loooool
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I've seen prison cells, but never have I seen a maximum security prison. So maybe you're right. Maybe there is some relief to all this. Aren't prisons already a slaughter house? Don't they go after one another with homemade weapons?
I know I'd rather be put to death than live 50+ years knowing some guy might cut me up in a corner somewhere during breaks.
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